


What Adults Do

by Prosodi



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-30
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prosodi/pseuds/Prosodi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two funerals and on becoming an adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Adults Do

**i.**  
“Last question, Tony,” says the columnist. He’s short and spry with a nose like a banana. Tony told him at the beginning of the interview: ‘’Mr. Stark,’ was my dad. Call me Tony.’ “How would you describe your vision of the future for Stark Industries?”

Tony Stark is turning twenty-one in two days. By the time the column runs, he’ll be the king of an empire. Over Banana Nose’s shoulder Obadiah is giving a him a look from where he’s sitting on the office couch, the couch that will be Tony’s along with everything else. It’s a look that says in equal parts _Thattaboy_ and _Don’t be a smartass, Tony._

Tony leans back in the leather chair and spread his hands. He has a pair of red sunglasses tucked into his shirt collar. “It’s Dad’s legacy – I’m here to make it bigger and better.”

After the interviewer leaves, Obadiah claps Tony on the shoulder. “First of many, kid,” and he produces a box from his jacket pocket.

“Obie, you shouldn’t have,” Tony shoots. “You’re making me feel all tingly inside.” He opens the box and there’s a pair of gold cufflinks. Tony’s never worn cufflinks in his life.

“You’ll need them – there’s going to be a lot of photos and we can’t have you looking like a teenager in a plastic suit, can we?”

Tony snorts and closes the box. He puts it in his pocket. He says, “Thanks, Obie” which earns him a second set of cuffs: rough, passing affection, Obadiah’s broad hand on the back of his neck.

 

 **ii.**  
Tony doesn’t really learn to tie a tie until he’s eighteen and then suddenly it’s important that he’s not wearing a fucking clip-on smuggled in under the edges of his shirt collar. His hands don’t shake; he does it on the first try without his anyone showing him how, definitely not his mother who would have done it one handed with a fluted glass trapped in the other.

Tony stands with his hands in his pockets. Obadiah gives the eulogy. Later, Tony thinks he should probably wait around until they come to fill in the graves, but instead he walks to the long black limousine wrapped around the curb. Obadiah, head bowed, walks close with him. Tony looks straight ahead and loosens his tie.

 

 **iii.**  
He hopped a plane to Europe and he didn’t look back – not for three months, anyway. He kept his sleeves rolled up and alternated between schmoozing at expensive hotel lounges and dirt cheap street corner cafes where he could wash dishes and eat pieces of bread that were rock hard on the outside, soft and buttery in the middle. Mostly Tony drank a lot – fucking amazing local beers, espresso and sour wine.

He still isn’t completely sure how Obadiah found him, but Tony wasn’t exactly surprised to see him waiting in the shade of the corner awning, nursing a sweating glass of scotch. That’s how it would probably always go: Tony philandering in Europe, on someone’s dry docked yacht on the Connecticut shoreline or sparkling New York City and Obadiah would appear, sudden and sharp in the haze of booze or coke to pull him into the back seat of a smoke and sweat stained taxi cab, straighten his shirt and say “Your mother’s worried sick,” even if it wasn’t the complete truth.

“Did Dad send you?” Tony asked, not sitting down.

Obadiah offered him the glass. “I thought you’d be calling him ‘Howard’ by now.”

Tony gulped the scotch down and slouched into the chair opposite. He stretched out his legs and jammed the balls of his feet against the curled table leg.

Obadiah takes him home in the back of a private jet and if Tony slept the whole way to Europe, he stays awake the whole way back.

 

 **iv.**  
The day of the memorial service is hot and clear. Sweat prickles under Tony’s shirt collar and he tugs at the knot of his tie. Pepper stands to the side of the stage on the edge of a smattering of reporters and maybe she doesn’t take her eyes of him the whole time Tony is up there, but who can say - Tony sure as hell can’t because he spends the first ten minutes staring at an empty seat in the crowd and not saying anything. When he finally does speak, he can hear the mechanics of his voice as he reads the words written in ball point on his palms. Burying Stane, like dropping a cluster bomb, is nine parts automatic and five percent unexploded.

Tony drinks in the car home and then locks himself in his room (mostly because the glass downstairs still hasn’t been replaced and it’s pretty hard to lock yourself in a room when someone can walk right through where the wall should be), drinks some more. Once there’s been ample time for him to pickle himself into unconsciousness, Pepper has Jarvis unlock the door. She takes off Tony’s tie, his shoes and puts him to bed. Before she leaves Pepper fishes gold cufflinks out of the bottom of the scotch glass, pours the rest down the bathroom sink and leaves the cufflinks on the counter to dry.


End file.
